Beyond the Average Divorce

Beyond the Average Divorce provides marriage and family scholars and students a rich depiction of how children and adults of all ages respond to diverse divorce experiences. Rather than emphasizing means and averages in looking at "typical" family reactions to divorce, authors David H. Demo and Mark A. Fine emphasize variability and change over time in the pre-divorce, divorce, and post-divorce process. The book′s three parts explore theoretical and methodological tools for studying divorce, the divorce process and its multiple pathways, and future directions in research.

Key Features

• Includes cutting-edge research on how children are affected by multiple transitions in family structure and parenting arrangements during the divorce process
• Covers the most common causes of divorce and how the family environment deteriorates during the years leading up to divorce
• Provides easy-to-understand descriptions and examples of how specific research methods can be used to study divorce
• Offers a dynamic theoretical model of divorce and how it is experienced by family members in a wide variety of family situations
• Discusses policy implications as well as directions for future theoretical, research, and clinical work in this vital area

Beyond the Average Divorce is intended as a core textbook for use in upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses in Family Stress and Divorce, Dysfunctional Families, Sociology of the Family, and Couples, Marriage, and Family Counseling.

David H. Demo is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His research focuses on divorce and family transitions, changes in family relationships accompanying divorce, and the consequences of family transitions for family members’ well-being. He has published widely in professional journals and he has authored or co-authored numerous chapters in edited volumes. He has also authored or edited several books, including Handbook of family diversity (with Katherine R. Allen and Mark A. Fine); Parents and adolescents in changing families (with Anne Marie Ambert); and Family diversity and well-being (with Alan C. Acock), which received the Choice Magazine Outstanding Book Award. He has served on the editorial boards of several journals, and in 2007, he began a term as Editor of Journal of Marriage and Family. He is a Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations. Mark Fine is a Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Missouri - Columbia. He was Editor of Family Relations from 1993-1996 and was Editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships from 1999-2004. His research interests lie in the areas of family transitions, such as divorce and remarriage; early intervention program evaluation; social cognition, and relationship stability. He was co-editor, along with David Demo and Katherine Allen, of the Handbook of family diversity, published in 2000 by Oxford University Press. He co-authored, along with John Harvey, Children of divorce: Stories of hope and loss in 2004 by Erlbaum; co-edited, with John Harvey, The handbook of divorce and relationship dissolution in 2005 by Erlbaum; and co-edited, with Jean Ispa and Kathy Thornburg, Keepin′ on: The everyday struggles of young families in poverty, published in 2006 by Brookes Publishing Company. He has published almost 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and books. In 2000, he was selected as a Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations. Dr. Fine is a licensed psychologist and maintains a small clinical practice.